A Valley Without Wind is a role-playing game where you explore and fight, trying to blah blah blah. The game it most reminds me of is Depths of Peril, where you went out on quests to help defend a town from monsters and such. The game starts with six characters to choose from that vary according to health, mana (called “magic points&rdquo

Crafting is done in two steps: you have to find books to unlock items, and then you have to find the resources required to actually make the item. The crafting interface (like most things, early in development) does a terrible job highlighting which starting resources you can currently use; a simple highlight here would save a lot of time having to select each starting resource and see if you have the other items required to make something. Spells use gems; currently, they are all ranged and all the same. The combat is uninteresting at the moment since the spells really come in one flavor: ranged. I would expect to see a lot more variety as development continues. It's also hard to aim the spells that are not bound to the three mouse buttons; I don't know if my gamepad that's plugged in is directing it, but it seems semi-random whether the spells go forwards, backwards, or straight up when you press the numerical key. Other items in addition to spells include one-use scrolls and a variety of items like potions and platforms (really necessary to navigate the caverns).

Enemies come in several flavors: basic, mini-boss, and super mega boss. At the moment, you only gain experience defeating the bosses, which makes for really slow growth. There is no point in engaging any of the lower enemies as they don't even drop anything: just jump over them. In addition, the bosses usually appear in groups and, at least at the very beginning of the game, are many magnitudes more powerful than you are. Plus, bosses are usually guarding resources that you need to craft the good spells required to defeat the bosses. You can see the problem here.

The game's maps are procedurally generated, which results in a different but (currently) bland experience every time. There is surface terrain that connect buildings (that need to be filled with more stuff than just empty rooms full of enemies) and extensive caverns. There are color-coded maps for each of the buildings and caverns so you don't get lost, although I wish I knew what the bars and colors meant.

Eventually, you'll get a strategic map through which you can order NPCs to explore or join your settlement. You can also use resources to build homes and places of employment for NPCs so that they will produce resources: that's really cool. This is a part of the game I have not experienced yet, though, as I am stuck dying in a cavern with overmatched enemies at the moment, and you can't earn the XP required to unlock the strategic map any other way.

The graphics are divisive: some people hate them, I tolerate them. The characters need more fluid animations, first and foremost.

So, is A Valley Without Wind worth a $10 pre-order. The potential says “yes”: Arcen Games has an intriguing title on their hands if they can have more varied spells, better game balance (easier bosses, or XP and items from lower-level enemies), more intuitive controls, and more exciting locations. Honestly, I like what I've seen so far and it appears to be headed in the right direction.

Cool stuff, thanks for doing the writeup.

A few responses:

Originally Posted By JaguarUSF
Spells use gems; currently, they are all ranged and all the same.

That's actually not completely true: ice cross and circle of fire work notably differently.  And really, launch rock and launch meteor, while ranged, function pretty differently because of the gravity.  As for the ranged spells, even those vary heavily in terms of size, travel speed, and whether they can hit one monster or pierce through multiple.  Granted, this is very much embryonic compared to where we're headed, but still.

Originally Posted By JaguarUSF
It's also hard to aim the spells that are not bound to the three mouse buttons; I don't know if my gamepad that's plugged in is directing it, but it seems semi-random whether the spells go forwards, backwards, or straight up when you press the numerical key.

This is sounding like some sort of bug that we'll have to look at.

Originally Posted By JaguarUSF
At the moment, you only gain experience defeating the bosses, which makes for really slow growth. There is no point in engaging any of the lower enemies as they don't even drop anything: just jump over them. In addition, the bosses usually appear in groups and, at least at the very beginning of the game, are many magnitudes more powerful than you are. Plus, bosses are usually guarding resources that you need to craft the good spells required to defeat the bosses. You can see the problem here.

Actually, what you're doing is attacking bosses that are higher-level than you early for some reason.  Every region has bosses scattered through their underground caverns, and sometimes in their surfaces, and also in large buildings like pyramids or military installations.  Also the rare commodity towers tend to have bosses that are at a level you can handle.  There are a huuuge number of bosses in the world, of various levels that means you should always be able to find an appropriate challenge.

Originally Posted By JaguarUSF

There is surface terrain that connect buildings (that need to be filled with more stuff than just empty rooms full of enemies) and extensive caverns.

Yep, we have no furniture yet, which is just a factor of this being early beta, not of being the ultimate intent.  The buildings are indeed quite bland in the main, although some of the maze rooms of various sorts are a lot more interesting.

Originally Posted By JaguarUSF

 

There are color-coded maps for each of the buildings and caverns so you don't get lost, although I wish I knew what the bars and colors meant.

As with basically everything in the game, all you have to do is hover over the map nodes to see what they mean -- tooltips are everywhere.

Originally Posted By JaguarUSF
Eventually, you'll get a strategic map through which you can order NPCs to explore or join your settlement. You can also use resources to build homes and places of employment for NPCs so that they will produce resources: that's really cool. This is a part of the game I have not experienced yet, though, as I am stuck dying in a cavern with overmatched enemies at the moment, and you can't earn the XP required to unlock the strategic map any other way.

Well, you can just go to a cavern that's equal to your level.  Or, if it's really too hard even on the same level as you, you can turn down the difficulty.  Every time you die it places you right next to a Difficulty Shrine that lets you change the difficulty.

Originally Posted By JaguarUSF
Honestly, I like what I've seen so far and it appears to be headed in the right direction.

Glad you enjoyed it in the main!

Originally Posted By x4000

Cool stuff, thanks for doing the writeup.

 

A few responses:

 

1. This is sounding like some sort of bug that we'll have to look at.

 

2. Actually, what you're doing is attacking bosses that are higher-level than you early for some reason.

 

3. As with basically everything in the game, all you have to do is hover over the map nodes to see what they mean -- tooltips are everywhere.

 

1. I turned the aiming cursor on and it seems to be tied to the W and S keys. I'd like it to just go towards whereever the mouse pointer is currently located, but it does not.

2. I headed for a level 1 resource tower. In the boss rooms were 1-2 level 2 bosses that had lots of health and powerful spells. I had to use a lot of potions.

3. Reading is for suckers.

Yes, for the low price of $10, it is absolutely worth it.

Originally Posted By JaguarUSF

1. I turned the aiming cursor on and it seems to be tied to the W and S keys. I'd like it to just go towards whereever the mouse pointer is currently located, but it does not.

Hmm, that should have been on by default, I thought.  But in order to fix some gamepad support stuff yesterday or the day before, I made some changes that probably are what caused this.  Curses for doing that so shortly before the beta, we've been trying to keep it close to as clean as a full release where possible, but that's not always possible this early in.

What OS are you playing on, just so that I know.  I haven't seen this on Windows, so I'm wondering if this is an OSX thing.

Originally Posted By JaguarUSF
2. I headed for a level 1 resource tower. In the boss rooms were 1-2 level 2 bosses that had lots of health and powerful spells. I had to use a lot of potions.

WHOA, that's completely wrong.  There ought to be 1 boss in each, each one at level 1.  Good god, that's easily four times as hard as it's designed to be.  There's a bug in the game that has been reported by others with some "boss message spam" and I think this might be related in some fashion.  I'll look into this for sure, but it's definitely something new that's crept in since the alpha testers were banging on it more.  We're not idiots, we'd never have intentionally made the challenge that steep; good god that would make it impossible to progress!

I actually defeated them! I used up like 10 health and 10 mana scrolls, but, hooray. When I entered each room, there were about 15 or so "XXX Boss Is Here" messages that popped up, as you described.

It got me to level 3 so now I have the strategy map. How do I issue orders to people?

x4000 - what is the long term plan for buildings?  At the moment they feel like individual "funhouses" - ie lots of rooms and the interior seems in no way related to the exterior, and all seem cave like in structure.  I guess I just didn't get what's going on?  If I enter a shed, I expect the inside to be vaguely shed like, rather than it being a significant set of caves?  Am I missing something or is the plan to reflect the exterior with the interior at a later point?

One other thing, it's great to see you and others from Arcen games posting- if there's one thing that makes me more likely to buy a game, it's seeing the developers actually taking the time to interact with the community.

Interesting. 

Hey, at least Jaguar's post informed me of the beta release, so you probably garnered another early adopter here. 

One big concern is the regular monsters not awarding any XP or loot.  We all know that fat fat loot is a big draw in action rpg types of games, yes?   Although I've not played this (yet!), it may be due to spells being the only loot focus, however.

I love the graphic style, except your character and the NPC's...they look so out of place. Make them in a similar art atyle and what will make this game is fluid animations and lots of them...

I think I liked the look and premise is because I was expecting a Terreria type of game once they went 2D. So along those lines it's looking very good indeed, especially as there is alot more to it than Terreria. 

Originally Posted By x4000

 

 

Originally Posted By JaguarUSF
2. I headed for a level 1 resource tower. In the boss rooms were 1-2 level 2 bosses that had lots of health and powerful spells. I had to use a lot of potions.

 

WHOA, that's completely wrong.  There ought to be 1 boss in each, each one at level 1.  Good god, that's easily four times as hard as it's designed to be.  There's a bug in the game that has been reported by others with some "boss message spam" and I think this might be related in some fashion.  I'll look into this for sure, but it's definitely something new that's crept in since the alpha testers were banging on it more.  We're not idiots, we'd never have intentionally made the challenge that steep; good god that would make it impossible to progress!

I had three or four boss rooms, in an underground dungeon (in the 2nd stage of my first basic winter area I explored), which had the boss list spammed upon entry.  There were Two level 2 bat bosses in each one.  Fortunately I had the Energy Blast spell that does lots of damage and flies through targets in a line  (I wanted to yell "Corp Por!" every time I fired that), and fireball in between so I managed to do them in with a couple-three potions during the fight.  Damn, those thing hurt when I was level 1.. and even level 2. 

..

I like the game, and can see how addictive it could be.  Although I've not been a big platformer player, since I was a kid and the original Metroid, I was drawn to this due to the exploration of procedurally generated areas.  It looks like you guys have the basics down fairly well for that.  And here comes the BUT:  it needs to be filled out.  Most of my time was spent just hopping around, exposing the fog of war in caverns, only to find maybe one ore or gem stone to harvest and an occasional boss room.  We need more goodies to search for, and probably a good deal of filler for many things.  I have faith you guys will get most of it filled out before the end of beta, and Arcen's ingenuity has been worth praise in the past so I look forward to seeing the end result.

After some more time playing, I have one "must" for future development leading up to release.

1. You must gain XP (even if it's a small amount) and get the occasional dropped item from low-level enemies. As it stands now, you simply jump over everyone until you reach the boss. Increase the amount of XP required to level up if you must, but there must be some reason to engage enemies other than "they are in my way".

The rest of my complaints are content-based (more spells, more enemies, more detailed interiors, more items, more NPC tasks, fixing that multi-high-level-boss-spam bug, etc, etc, etc) or polish-based (more intuitive aiming of non-mouse-button weapons).

The more I play, the more I see what the game could be in the future and the more hopeful I am.

Yeah more content #1.

I think the regular enemies should only have a chance to drop some loot.  Not XP, as I see how that has been balanced for game progression and the small amount needed to go forward.  After finding loot (other than potions) to be rather rare, I'd prefer the little mobs just have a chance to drop some kind of dust or crafting material.  That'd make it worth killing a few, instead of only doing it when you can't go/jump around them.

I think my one biggest problem with the game is motivation. I pass all these buildings, and I haven't really got an incentive to go into them. The actual corridors and adjoining rooms, whilst being constructed out of code, don't actually make me want to explore them. Even the lead up areas, seem to be designed to be got through, without conflict, if you can. Theres no reward for overcoming some obstacles in your way, to the place you are going. It's like blitzing an area, to get to the tower. So you can take on the bosses. Even the boss fights don't really inspire motivation. I've enjoyed the boss fights more than the avoidance of the garden trash, just there to nibble away at your health bar. But, again, they are stacked in a tower, and each level just seems to be there to chisel away at your ability to go another level higher. 

I think the motivation perhaps hasn't kicked in yet. I've only put an hour or two into the game. I've used mainly the rock throw and the sparkly fireworks for distraction. My motivation at the moment, is to get to the point where things start to matter to me on the strategic map. That hasn't happened yet. Although I think I've reached Civ level 3.

Obviously I'd like more health potions, but I'm not sure the price I have to pay to find them is worth it. jigging through a building, dipping in and out of doors, and going through the platform motions of moving your character through a procedurally generated maze, in search of the chance of a potion or two - doesn't seem worth the effort. Perhaps I'm missing something here. But I feel as if the struggle should be more involving, more important to me. I should WANT to explore a building, or an area. And there should be things I can do that make a difference on the way to the boss towers - rather than just trying to skip my way through on an avoidance mission, in the hope I can conserve some health.

I think the attack cursor definitely needs some sort of distinctive look, so that you can spot and aim it, within the 'busy' backdrops of animated sprites and effects. On my laptop, there was some juddering of the scroll, and there seems to be a lot going on for my eyes to keep up, in full flight. So I've turned on VSync, and switched on Static Skies, and that seems to have helped me focus on the action better. 

I like the idea of the game. I want the action to be more engaging, at all levels - not just the bosses. I really like the idea of a platform game, where you have to craft and deform the environment to make the attacks work. Throwing the rocks through crates to chisel a window of opportunity, dropping a firework outside this window, and then pelting the glowy globe thing with rocks, sucking down mana potions to keep the flow going was quite exhiliarating. But I think there needs to be more variety in the environment and the outcomes you can construct. Imagine crafting weapons, like ballistas from raw materials and being able to set them up in a boss area to trigger them off?

Anyway, so far, I'm intrigued with it, but I'm not sure its got the RPG pull, the exploration pull, nor the crafting pull. It seems to offer a lot, and deliver only a hint of it. I just wish it spurred a little more motivation and didn't rely so much on avoidance of a constant withering fire on your health bar.

More content (including shinies to find in such buildings and caves) would go a long way to solving the barren and unmotivated feel.   As I said, they just need to fill in the large amount of emptiness in the environments, and add some extra rewards, including perhaps adding a separate type of loot for killing stuff).

Definitely adding more content. We've got tons planned! I think you guys will like what we've got coming.

Originally Posted By tigersfan

Definitely adding more content. We've got tons planned! I think you guys will like what we've got coming.

Hell yeahhh.

Edit: I don't doubt it after seeing all the various units in the AI War series.

I've been impressed with the pace of the last few beta updates, and the improvements in them.  The content additions were quickly noticeable, along with the requested adjustments.  You guys are on the right track!

Same here, and I mainly just purchased the beta of AVWW like a cheapskate for the $10 price tag, knowing I'd never get around to really delving into it til the full version was released anyway.  I have no doubt that Arcen will improve this game and listen to their fans just as they've done for the now phenominal AI war, so figure my $10 investment is an easy win for me, will likely end up re-purchasing the full game a time or two for a few of my gamer friends (who are married with kids and spend little to no time keeping up with new releases online like I do) as gifts as well.

Just having the trash drop the sparkly stuff has added a bit more to the journey. Now there is a reason to fight the landscape mobs. 

I noticed the Vengeful Ghosts yesterday. Now they're nasty. Floaty dead versions of your past self. I collected three floaters before giving the tower I was attempting to ascend a wide berth for the forseeable future.

I managed to kill off my keyboard's space bar a couple days ago.  Lotsa jumping, for sure.  Luckily, I have extra peripherals sitting about (yay PC packrat!). 

Still, I added the 'W' key as an extra jump option.  The space key gets abused enough as it is.   

A console-style controller would be appropriate for AVWW, for the platforming gameplay, but the mouse is control is something required IMO, not to mention the keyboard number keys for all your extras.